X to the Z, Xzibit, or just X for short. Detroit native Alvin Joiner will answer to them all. He's been turning out underground hip-hop classics for more than a decadeunder those names, but most people know him for his automotive antics as the host of one of MTV's most prolific, popular, and positive reality shows, Pimp My Ride.

Before all the hip-hop hype and twenty-two-inch chromes, X was like a lot of kids these days: moving around, at odds with his folks and the law, and just trying to figure out what in the world he was gonna do with his life.

Now that he's breaking into his third decade with a new movie role and album—and having spent the last decade as a father—he's got some words to the wise.

RISEN Magazine: What's your best memory of being a kid in Detroit?

Xzibit: Oh, there's several memories. Running up and down the street. Riding my Big Wheel. There were snowdrifts when I was walking to school that were taller than me. Just fond memories, man. Things that people in the Midwest really hold onto. All those fads and the way they dress, and the way they talk, it's just different.

RM: How did you start writing down rhymes and raps?

X: My parents hated rap music. When I was 13 and I first started writing, it was because my parents would confiscate all of my [rap music]. They thought it was bad for me. So the next best thing to listening to it was writing it. I started writing my own raps and saying them at lunchtime. That's how I started.

RM: You moved down to New Mexico at some point.

X: Right, I was in New Mexico at that time. My mother passed when I was 9 and my dad got remarried and that's where we went to live.

RM: Who did you bounce things off of in New Mexico? Were the kids into hip-hop there?

X: Well, you know, there were cats who were into it. Mostly they had moved there from somewhere else. Same circumstances. And we got to listen to whatever fell through. It was on cassettes at the time—there really wasn't any hip-hop station—so you had to get mixtapes and what not. There were cats there, but it was nothing like a metropolis. I had to leave in order to get into a scene.

RM: Is that why you took off to Los Angeles?

X: No. I went out to Los Angeles because I definitely wanted to make music, but I didn't come here [to get into a scene]. I was in Albuquerque and I was getting into a lot of trouble and just needed to change scenery.

RM: You thought you could get out of trouble by going to Los Angeles?

X: Well, I thought I would just try it. You can stay where you are and be like those guys who were the s—t in high school but stay around that town for their whole damn life. You can be that guy, or you can venture out and try something else. I wasn't going to college and I wanted to take a shot. So I came here. I knew I didn't want to do anything illegal anymore.

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